Financial Comparison: Nordic American Tankers (NYSE:NAT) vs. Tsakos Energy Navigation (NYSE:TEN)

Nordic American Tankers (NYSE:NAT) and Tsakos Energy Navigation (NYSE:TEN) are both small-cap transportation companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, risk, earnings, profitability, dividends, valuation and institutional ownership.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current recommendations for Nordic American Tankers and Tsakos Energy Navigation, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Nordic American Tankers	0	1	0	0	2.00
Tsakos Energy Navigation	0	2	1	1	2.75

Nordic American Tankers currently has a consensus target price of $3.00, suggesting a potential downside of 3.69%. Tsakos Energy Navigation has a consensus target price of $30.50, suggesting a potential upside of 37.05%. Given Tsakos Energy Navigation’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Tsakos Energy Navigation is more favorable than Nordic American Tankers.

Dividends

Nordic American Tankers pays an annual dividend of $0.28 per share and has a dividend yield of 9.0%. Tsakos Energy Navigation pays an annual dividend of $1.20 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.4%. Nordic American Tankers pays out 400.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Tsakos Energy Navigation pays out 26.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Nordic American Tankers has raised its dividend for 1 consecutive years. Nordic American Tankers is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Risk and Volatility

Nordic American Tankers has a beta of -0.22, indicating that its stock price is 122% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Tsakos Energy Navigation has a beta of -0.07, indicating that its stock price is 107% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Nordic American Tankers and Tsakos Energy Navigation”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Nordic American Tankers	$225.10 million	2.93	$46.64 million	$0.07	44.50
Tsakos Energy Navigation	$804.06 million	0.83	$176.23 million	$4.49	4.96

Tsakos Energy Navigation has higher revenue and earnings than Nordic American Tankers. Tsakos Energy Navigation is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Nordic American Tankers, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Nordic American Tankers and Tsakos Energy Navigation’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Nordic American Tankers	7.58%	2.64%	1.59%
Tsakos Energy Navigation	20.00%	14.17%	6.63%

Institutional and Insider Ownership

44.3% of Nordic American Tankers shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 19.2% of Tsakos Energy Navigation shares are held by institutional investors. 2.9% of Nordic American Tankers shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 1.0% of Tsakos Energy Navigation shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Tsakos Energy Navigation beats Nordic American Tankers on 12 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Nordic American Tankers

Nordic American Tankers Limited, a tanker company, acquires and charters double-hull tankers in Bermuda and internationally. It operates a fleet of 20 Suezmax crude oil tankers. The company was incorporated in 1995 and is headquartered in Hamilton, Bermuda.

About Tsakos Energy Navigation

Tsakos Energy Navigation Ltd. engages in the provision of seaborne crude oil and petroleum product transportation services. Its activities include the operation of crude tankers, product tankers, and liquefied natural gas carriers. The company was founded by Nikolas P. Tsakos and Michael Gordon Jolliffee in July 1993 and is headquartered in Athens, Greece.